1. Field of the Disclosure
The disclosed mechanism relates in general to a waveguide configuration, and more particularly, to a waveguide configuration which is particularly well suited for the suppression of SBS due to an interaction of acoustic waves with optical signals.
2. Background Art
The use of waveguides in various industries such as telecommunications and lasers, among others, has been steadily increasing. While the ability to send optical signals through waveguides is well known in the art, certain deleterious phenomena have been observed. In particular, one effect that has been observed is the Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) effect.
SBS is an important example of a stimulated scattering process; light scattering which occurs when the intensity of the light field itself affects the propagating medium (i.e., an effect caused by the spatial and spectral overlap between the optical waves and the acoustic modes that form in the waveguide)This phenomenon has become relevant in the optical fiber industry, due to the increasing intensity required in optical fiber cores and the relatively long interaction lengths. SBS is one of the major limiting factors on the amount of power that can be transmitted via an optical fiber.
Attempts to suppress the SBS effect have relied on waveguides which have particular constructions. While some of the solutions have suppressed the SBS effect to some extent, many of these waveguides have constructions which are difficult to manufacture on a large scale, or which are economically not feasible.
More recently, certain solutions have provided greater enhancement of SBS suppression relative to prior art solutions. Such solutions include Dragic, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/766,289 filed Jan. 27, 2004, entitled “Waveguide Configuration” and Dragic, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/052,464 filed Feb. 7, 2005, entitled “Waveguide Configuration.” The entire disclosures of these applications are incorporated by reference herein for all that they teach and without limitation to this particular section.